Don’t Bomb Iran

summary: A 300 page, two year study by the US army Strategic Studies Institute, published in October 05, suggests “Iran is now no more than 12 to 48 months from acquiring a nuclear bomb, lacks for nothing technologically or materially to produce it, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so.” It also suggests that Israeli and US military options are very limited to prevent this, and that they might have to live with a nuclear-armed Iran. They suggest seven recommendations on how to contain Iran in that case.

GETTING READY FOR A NUCLEAR-READY IRAN http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB629.pdf page 9

“As for the most popular policy options -to bomb or bribe Iran- too few analysts and officials are willing to admit publicly how self-defeating these courses of action might be.”

This report, based on commissioned research and 2 years’ worth of meetings with the nation’s leading experts on Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation, is intended to highlight sounder policy options. These recommendations were:

1. Discrediting the legitimacy of Iran’s nuclear program as a model for other proliferators through a series of follow-on meetings to the 2005 NPT Review Conference to clarify what activities qualify as being “peaceful” under the NPT.

2. Increasing the costs for Iran and its neighbors to leave or infringe the NPT by establishing country-neutral rules against violators withdrawing from the treaty and against NPT violators more generally.

3. Securing Russian cooperation in these efforts by offering Moscow a lucrative U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement.

4. Reducing Persian Gulf oil and gas production and distribution system vulnerabilities to possible terrorist disruptions by building additional back-up capabilities in Saudi Arabia.

5. Limiting Iran’s freedom to threaten oil and gas shipping by proposing a Montreux-like convention to demilitarize the Straits of Hormuz and an agreement to limit possible incidents at sea.

6. Isolating Iran as a regional producer of fissile materials by encouraging Israel to take the first steps to freeze and dismantle such capabilities.

7. Backing these diplomatic-economic initiatives with increased U.S.- allied anti-terrorist, defense, naval border security, and nuclear nonproliferation cooperation.